Steve Barclay MP: speeches 2026

Speeches

• 20 Jan 2026 · Holocaust Memorial Bill · Hansard source

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  I rise briefly because I agree with both the tenor of the debate and the tone in which colleagues across the House have quite rightly highlighted the sheer horror of the Holocaust, the importance of remembering its sheer scale and the challenges particularly, as the hon. Member for Chelmsford (Marie Goldman) highlighted, in the context of rising antisemitism, and as the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Josh Babarinde) mentioned, in having fewer survivors with lived experience here to share their stories. I want to address two points raised by the Father of the House, my right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh). First, he raised a point that I surmise was on security, and I say to him that I simply do not know where the best site would be from a security perspective. It may be that somewhere between Parliament, which is obviously heavily secured, and MI5 would be an appropriate location for a site that will always carry security risks. It may be that other sites are better, and I defer to those with far more expertise than me. I note that the current Father of the House—like the previous Father of the House— has spoken about his concerns with the design of the memorial, which I think reflects the fact that he is a former Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, but I always have a slight concern. We obviously all agree on the principle, because it is important, and as the Member for Chelmsford said, after 11 years there is a need to make progress. I am not calling for delay—I certainly am not—because this is important, and we need to get on with it and to deliver it. However, it is fair to say that when the House is agreed on an issue, there is a danger that that issue is not sufficiently scrutinised. As I have said, the current Father of the House, like the previous Father of the House, has raised concerns. He speaks as a former Chair of the PAC; I currently chair the Finance Committee. The Finance Committee is not responsible for restoration and renewal—the House will come on to debate that—but I have already seen very serious concerns emerging around the challenges of the programme. You, Madam Deputy Speaker, have huge experience of the programme. Indeed, the programme has been repeatedly delayed and seen significant cost overruns. The design before us includes a significant proportion of construction underground in a very constrained site. I think the Minister opened the debate extremely well and I agreed with much of what she said, but it seemed to me that she is giving the trustees quite a lot of discretion, so I simply want to say how important it is, on this programme, that there is very real transparency about some of the challenges that I fear will emerge with the design, the construction, the risk of cost overruns, the constraints and the compromises. Can I bring that alive with one example? This site was constrained, and Parliament, as is its right, chose to vote to remove that constraint. On the R and R programme, I am told that the children’s education centre has to move because of an identical constraint. I suspect that the interaction of this programme with the R and R programme will come before the House in due course and raise some challenges. Indeed, the House has not even decided about such matters as what will happen to the education centre under the R and R programme. The importance of remembering the unbelievable horror of the Holocaust cannot be overstated—

• 20 Jan 2026 · Chinese Embassy · Hansard source

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  Does the Minister believe that the approval of this Chinese mega-embassy makes the British people safer?

• 19 Jan 2026 · Statutory SEND Duties: Intervention Powers · Hansard source

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  In the Secretary of State’s letter to me of 11 January, she said that the much-needed special educational needs school, Lime academy in March, could proceed if the Lib Dem county council responds by 27 February to say that it is a priority. Could the Minister confirm from the Dispatch Box that funding will be allocated for that priority school if the local authority, run by the Lib Dems, confirms to the Government its desire to do so?

• 13 Jan 2026 · Finance (No. 2) Bill · Hansard source

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  Does my hon. Friend agree that new clause 9 would actually be helpful to Government Back Benchers? Given how frequently No. 10 is U-turning, including yet another U-turn on digital ID just today, having an assessment of the cumulative impacts will help them when they come to their next potential U-turn in this area.

• 12 Jan 2026 · New Medium Helicopter Contract · Hansard source

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  The Minister said that he welcomed the questions from my hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare) and my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis), but he did not answer either; he did not tell us whether the defence investment plan will be published this financial year and he did not speak to the critical nature of a decision before going into the next financial year. He has explained missing multiple deadlines by simply refusing to give any further deadlines. Does he accept that this is a choice of this Government, without blaming the previous Government? If this Government can find additional funding for welfare, they could find additional funding to meet this contract.

• 7 Jan 2026 · Rural Communities · Hansard source

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  Go ahead.

• 7 Jan 2026 · Rural Communities · Hansard source

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  The irony will not be lost on farmers—in Norfolk and across the border in Fenland in my constituency—hearing the hon. Members for South West Norfolk (Terry Jermy) and for South Norfolk (Ben Goldsborough) say how important farming is, after they voted for the family farm tax. That builds on a contradiction we saw at the general election. The Labour party said that it wanted to offer a new deal for farming, yet that new deal has — [ Interruption. ] If the hon. Member for South Derbyshire (Samantha Niblett) wants to intervene she can, rather than chuntering.

• 7 Jan 2026 · Rural Communities · Hansard source

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  Of course; if the hon. Gentleman also wants to give me more time to speak, I will take a second intervention.

• 7 Jan 2026 · Rural Communities · Hansard source

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  The point is that the hon. Gentleman did not oppose it. There was also the opportunity to vote in the Finance (No. 2) Bill—there were two opportunities for the House to vote on it, and one should look at both votes to determine whether people were for or against it. That is a matter of public record. We have had a number of Opposition day debates on this policy and there have been a number of opportunities to vote in the House. People’s voting records, and their records on the family farm tax more broadly, are there for all to see. However, the Government have done a only partial U-turn on that policy, so if the hon. Gentleman wants to show that he is opposed to the tax, he will hopefully support future votes to remove it entirely. We have had only a partial U-turn, so there will still be an opportunity for him to go further. Of course, the family farm tax is not the only measure. We have also seen the sustainable farming incentive scheme stopped abruptly with no notice to farmers and no timeline for its reopening. We have also seen the farm to fork summit at No. 10—an important opportunity for the industry to have the ear of the Prime Minister—scrapped. We have seen schemes on productivity cut, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Skipton and Ripon (Sir Julian Smith) spoke about a whole range of wider pressures. All that builds on the fact that there was only one paragraph—on page 59—on farming in the Labour party manifesto. I turn to that paragraph first, because one of the few commitments the Labour party made was that 50% of food procured by the public sector would be locally sourced or produced to higher environmental standards. Given that a number of months have now passed since that manifesto, will the Minister commit to writing to me with a timeline for the implementation of that manifesto commitment? It could make a real difference to helping the farming community. The second thing I want to highlight is the report of Baroness Batters, who is widely respected across the House and certainly within rural communities. In her report, she makes 57 recommendations. I think it is regrettable that it was slipped out right at the end of the year before Christmas; it is a serious report that merits serious attention, as I am sure the Minister would agree. Given the pressures that colleagues across the House have spoken of, could the Minister update the House on the timeline for the implementation of those 57 recommendations? Thirdly, I want to touch on a theme that applies to both Opposition day debates today. Last year was characterised by a number of U-turns that the Government were forced to make on policies that the Prime Minister had asked his Back Benchers to speak about—not just on the family farm tax, but on welfare reform, the winter fuel allowance and national insurance, where the previous Budget had triumphed the fact that tax thresholds would not remain frozen only for the 2025 Budget to do exactly the opposite. We can already see a theme here, with a number of U-turns that are pretty foreseeable—one of them from the previous debate on jury trials, where there are widespread concerns. In farming, too, we can see a number of potential areas. The area I want to highlight in particular is rural pubs, and I commend The Telegraph for the campaign it has launched. I want to speak to the serious concerns that I am hearing from my rural pubs, as I am sure Members of all parties across the House will be hearing. I do not support the ban on Labour MPs from pubs; I do not personally think that is the right approach, as pubs are the heart of our communities and should be places that bring people together. I think the Government are making a serious mistake, and I would gently say to Labour Back Benchers that I foresee that this will be another issue on which they are marched up the hill only for their Prime Minister, under pressure, to change his mind. I think he will do it on digital ID and jury trials, and I think he will do it on rural pubs. We can save people a lot of anxiety if the proposals are changed.

• 7 Jan 2026 · Rural Communities · Hansard source

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  That is fine. I do not know if the hon. Lady was referring to an abstention as opposed to a vote against, but the reality is that only one Labour Member of Parliament voted against the policy. People’s voting records are there for all to see.

• 7 Jan 2026 · Jury Trials · Hansard source

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  That is not unusual.

• 7 Jan 2026 · Jury Trials · Hansard source

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  I would not say this of most of the debates that I attend in the House, but this one has been genuinely revealing, primarily because of what the Minister said at the end and the opening of her remarks. As the hon. and learned Member for North Antrim (Jim Allister) pointed out powerfully—he speaks with great professional experience on this issue—these proposals will not work. That is exactly what the Minister has been told by her own colleagues. The hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull East (Karl Turner) described the proposals as “ludicrous” and said that they will not work. It is what she has been told by her own profession—her own colleagues in the legal profession point to the fact that these proposals will not work. That speaks to a conundrum we have considered in past debates on this issue: why is there such reluctance on the part of the Government to bring forward the impact assessment if they have already made this decision? If they have already taken the view that these changes will work, surely they want to present the evidence to prove that. As was pointed out earlier in the debate, if they will not publish the full impact assessment, surely they will publish the threshold—the minimum tipping point—on which this policy will be determined worth while, not least given how fundamental a change is being proposed. As the Minister set out at the end of her remarks, she would be making this change irrespective of whether there is a crisis in the courts. There we have the crux—the head of the nail that the hon. and learned Member for North Antrim hit—which is that this is an ideological change. That in turn opens up a second paradox: if the change is ideological, why was it not in the manifesto? Indeed, if it is ideological, why is it contrary to what the Justice Secretary said so many times in opposition? When did he have his change of belief to this new ideological position? Given the time limit, I will turn to a further contradiction. The Prime Minister has so often spoken about the need for more trust in politics, yet here we have a policy that marks a fundamental change after 800 years of legal precedent with no transparency or evidence that it will work, that was not in the manifesto and that is contrary to the remarks that the Government have made. At the start of her remarks, the Minister spoke about choices. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgwater (Sir Ashley Fox) pointed out with the list he gave and as my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest West (Sir Desmond Swayne) rightly identified, this will be a choice for Labour Back Benchers, and it is a choice that they are at risk of making only for the Prime Minister to then belatedly change his mind.

• 7 Jan 2026 · Ukraine and Wider Operational Update · Hansard source

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  The Defence Secretary refused to say when the defence investment plan will be published, and there is a tension between the statement about the immediacy of the growing threats and the lack of urgency on funding as other areas of Government are prioritised. Does he recognise that other nations are moving now on funding? Why are the Government so complacent on funding that they are prioritising other Departments over moving now on defence?